“Education is the most powerful weapon which

you can use to change the world.”

-Nelson Mandela
I first heard this quote on the day of Mandela’s death. I was a senior in high school and had just

recently submitted all my college applications. After many grueling hours writing essays, exploring areas

of study, and ultimately determining what I wanted my future to look like, I had decided that I wanted to

be a teacher. My own teachers discouraged it, my peers wondered why, and my parents begged me to

pick anything else. But I was not deterred; I was insistent on teaching. I took Mandela’s words to heart

and planned to spend the rest of my career learning how people process and learn concepts one lesson at a

time. I planned to change the world, one thinking student mind at a time.

With such a big goal, I turned to the two subjects I had always enjoyed to lead me on my journey:

Math and English. My Math brain helps me logistically plan, organize, and calculate while my English

brain let me articulate and analyze everything I hoped, planned, and organized. I have found beauty in the

problem-solving necessary for Math while also admiring the ambiguity of literary analysis or character

development in English. It also brings an interesting twist to implementing curriculums. My subjects have

taught me how to stay on task and find the logic of a lesson or unit plan while also infusing creative ways

to deliver content. My passion lies where these two seemingly opposite subjects intertwine to form a

deeper understanding of a problem, idea, or concept. I allow and even encourage my math students to

write about their understanding and ask my English students to create logical, formulaic analysis of

characters and themes before critical analysis. They give me the power to be a critical thinker in such a

different way and teach my students these skills as well! By approaching challenges from a combined

point of view of both Math and English, I bring new perspectives to integrated challenges and situations.

Since deciding to pursue education, I no longer consider just myself in the classroom. I crave a

community of learners who challenge themselves; I want to watch people understand a concept and see

why; and, more than anything, I desire a passion for other people to truly care about what they were
learning. Professionally, I hope for a team of teachers who challenge my own thinking through

development opportunities as well as growth through involvement with both the National Council of

Teachers of English and Math. Through a strong community, I am determined to be both a passionate and

professional teacher.

With that in mind, the purpose of education, to familiarize students with concepts and create

lifelong critical thinkers, centers around two things: the student and the community. The student must be

considered as the most basic and important component of the classroom. Thus, their learning should be

personal and engaging through the incorporation of students wants, likes, and needs to provide a deeper

learning experience. Therefore, instead of shying away from new experiences, I experiment with

technologies and ways to change learning, including partial and fully flipped classrooms, digital

classroom boards, and online feedback tools. However, more importantly, I focus on relationships with

my students. To gain anything from them, I must consider them as the young people they are. By

recognizing their place in their own learning, I give students ownership to the shared, growing knowledge

of the classroom.

By valuing the individual, students become more inclined to engage and interact. This becomes

exponentially influential as students grow into the young adults of tomorrow. By exposing students to

learning collectively, the classroom is a place of active learning, instead of just passively getting

information. Students learn to communicate their own idea, hear others’ ideas, and build an understanding

based on discussion, building a community of learners where everyone is valued. This also allows for

assessment in real time to see where students excel, falter, and think. This, coupled with formative and

summative assessments, leads to a better, more holistic appraisal of the students’ understanding. These

assessments formulate the lesson plan, its flexibility, and its pace. By constantly gauging student learners,

we can continually grow in their learning, conception, and thinking skills, one of the true goals of

secondary education. By placing an emphasis on both the individual and the classroom community, as a

class, we will begin to see situations that extends outside of ourselves. By thinking outside of ourselves

together, we can do as Mr. Mandela said and change the world.